The cockpit is an overtly 1970s-flavoured affair, trimmed in brown and beige and with all the screens housed in retro lozenge-shaped housings atop a minimalist dashboard.
The R17 Electric Restomod x Ora Ito, to use its full name, will make its public debut on Renault’s stand at the Paris motor show next month, where the firm is also expected to reveal the production version of the 4 electric crossover.
Renault hasn’t alluded to any plans for a production version, but a succession of similarly conceived, retro-futuristic Renault concepts revealed over the last three years have all been based on old models that are now being brought back as EVs: the 4, 5 and Twingo.
Unlike with those urban-oriented, economy-focused runarounds, though, the business case for a revival of a two-door coupé would seem less obvious.
Renault hasn’t sold a coupé since the unpopular two-door Laguna was retired in 2015, around the same that the likes of the Volkswagen Scirocco, Vauxhall Astra GTC and Hyundai Veloster all bowed out, the market for hatchback-based coupés having evaporated.
However, green shoots of a renaissance have appeared in recent times, with Honda bringing back the Prelude as a Civic-based hybrid coupé and Toyota hinting at plans for a similarly conceived Celica revival.
